


It's a Cold & it's a Broken "Hallelujah"

by BookishAngel (DisnerdingAvenger)



Series: An Angel and a Demon [4]
Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Missing Scene, Oneshot, TV Canon, TW: implied suicidal thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-16
Updated: 2019-06-16
Packaged: 2020-05-12 16:49:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,237
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19233163
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DisnerdingAvenger/pseuds/BookishAngel
Summary: On the bus ride back to London, thoroughly exhausted and clinging to the hand of an angel he had been convinced he would never see again, Crowley whispers, "I thought you were dead."





	It's a Cold & it's a Broken "Hallelujah"

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by the sentence prompt "I thought you were dead" from @spacecharlotte on Twitter.

The bus, as buses usually are, was uncomfortable. The plastic seats were covered in dreadfully scratchy fabric and they were hardly ideal for a journey all the way back to London from Tadfield. Additionally, the fact that the air conditioning was, for some reason or another, pumping in their direction at full power didn’t help matters much.

The bus, as buses usually are, was also _loud_. The windows rattled with every bump and pothole in the road; the engine groaned and the breaks screeched; and there was a baby, somewhere near the back, who hadn’t stopped crying since they got on nearly an hour ago.

All of these problems could have been solved with a quick miracle or two, but both Aziraphale and Crowley were… reasonably _apprehensive_ about using their powers for something so frivolous. Drawing unnecessary attention to themselves immediately after aiding in the prevention of the Apocalypse would have been far too foolhardy. So, the angel and the demon opted to suffer in silence, shoulders pressed together and hands, for all the world to see, clasped.

Crowley was tired. He was exhausted to the point where he _really_ was dreading the necessity of moving once the bus reached his building – but he had managed, in a final spurt of energy, to latch onto Aziraphale’s hand once the angel took a seat _directly beside him_. Perhaps it was the angel's final act of defiance in the face of the day’s events – or perhaps it was a silent agreement to being on “their” side. Either way, Aziraphale hadn’t sat in front of nor behind him on a bus nearly filled with empty seats; he sat directly beside him, shoulder to shoulder, and he didn’t pull away when Crowley took his hand. Instead, he’d chosen to interlock their fingers and give Crowley’s hand what was likely meant to be a reassuring squeeze.

Crowley subsequently had, in the fifty-five minutes and forty-three, forty-four, forty-five seconds since taking Aziraphale’s hand and not being rejected, subtly shifted closer and allowed his head to rest on the angel’s shoulder. Thanks to the air conditioning, it was much too cold for him to even consider napping, but he still hadn’t been able to resist being just that slight bit closer to Aziraphale. The act of grabbing his hand had been, in part, to reassure himself that the angel was really there - that all of this wasn’t just some bizarre dream that he was having after passing out in that pub while the world burned around him. Resting his head on Aziraphale’s shoulder was done for much the same reason. If he could just be close to him and feel the worn wool coat against his cheek, feel the rise and fall of his unnecessary but reassuring breathing, and _smell_ him – old books and ink at his fingertips, lingering traces of hot cocoa, and something distinctly celestial – then it meant everything was okay. It meant that Aziraphale really was _here,_ regardless of all that had happened – regardless of all that Crowley _thought_ had happened.

Weakly forcing his eyes open behind his sunglasses, Crowley held Aziraphale’s hand that much tighter and (so quietly that it was barely discernable over the rattling windows, groaning engine, and wailing baby) said, “I thought you were dead.”

Had Aziraphale not long ago become fully attuned to Crowley’s subtle shifts in demeanour and the sound of his voice, he might not have heard Crowley at all. But he _was_ fully attuned to Crowley, and so he did. Furrowing his brow, Aziraphale turned his head just enough to peek at the demon lounging on his shoulder and asked, “I’m sorry?”

“At the bookshop,” Crowley continued, his voice thick with exhaustion and the leftover effects of the wine they had consumed while they waited for the bus. “I thought… y’know… that it might’ve been…” Shifting awkwardly, the demon fidgeted with his sunglasses and quietly finished, “… _Hell_ fire. The nasty stuff. Not just the ordinary Earthly stuff. I thought that, maybe… y’know, I was so sure I’d trapped Hastur well and proper, but then I got to thinking, ‘Well, I’ve just killed his best friend. If somebody killed _my_ best friend, I’d stop at nothing to get my hands on whoever did it’ – so maybe he could’ve escaped, y’know?”

“You’ve said that three times now, my dear.”

“What?”

“You’ve said ‘y’know?’ three times now.”

Blushing, as much as a serpentine demon in a human body could blush (which was actually a normal amount, but Crowley would never admit it), Crowley shifted to lift his head from Aziraphale’s shoulder before slouching in his seat. Tugging his hand free, he crossed his arms over his chest and looked out the window, mumbling, “Forget it.”

“Crowley.”

“Just forget I said anything.”

“ _Crowley._ ”

He only turned to look at the angel again when Aziraphale placed a hand on his shoulder and effectively _made_ him turn around. The look in his blue eyes was so… _unguarded_ that it made a lump rise in Crowley’s throat.

“My dear, I didn’t mean anything bad by pointing that out. It’s just that… well, I suppose I’ve noticed that you tend to say ‘y’know?’ a great deal when trying to explain something that upsets you.”

Ducking his head again, Crowley mumbled, “I don’t.”

“You _do_ ,” Aziraphale softly countered, taking Crowley’s chin in his fingers to make him look at him again. “I have a theory about it, actually. You say ‘y’know?’ to make people stop and think, ‘Well, _do_ I know?’ – that way they’ll be distracted and won’t notice just how affected you are by whatever it is that you’re talking about.”

Crowley felt his resolve crumbling the longer Aziraphale’s soft, manicured fingers lingered at his chin. Drawing in a wavering breath, he shakily repeated after a moment, “I thought you were _dead_.”

Aziraphale looked pained.

“I thought you were dead, and I thought it was my fault,” Crowley clarified, clenching and unclenching his fists as he spoke just for something to do with his hands. “I thought that Hastur got out and, instead of coming for me _directly,_ he came after _you_. What was it Hammurabi put in his Code…?”

Brushing his fingers gently up to cup Crowley’s cheek, Aziraphale filled in, “ _An eye for an eye._ ”

Crowley made a quiet noise of confirmation. Aziraphale couldn’t see it, what with the sunglasses, but Crowley could feel tears welling up in his eyes. Breathing deeply in an effort to stave them off, he mumbled, “A best friend for a best friend. I thought he set the shop aflame with Hell fire and that, by the time I got there, there was nothing left of you. Nothing _to_ save, no matter how badly I wanted to – and all because I ran off when I should have _stayed_. That’s _why_ I grabbed bloody Agnus Nutter’s book; it’s all that I _could_ save.”

“Oh, Crowley,” Aziraphale whispered as he gently stroked his thumb over the demon’s cheek, subtly catching a tear and thoughtfully saying nothing about it. “But I didn’t die; not properly, anyway. I was just discorporated - and now here I am, right as rain.”

Shifting uncomfortably, Crowley reached up to take Aziraphale’s hand again, pulling it from his cheek and letting it rest on his lap. Using his free hand to toy with the ring on the angel’s pinkie finger – the one he had bought him for Christmas all those years ago without thinking for a second that he would actually _wear_ it – Crowley mumbled, “No thanks to me.”

“Really, my dear – you mustn’t blame yourself.”

Crowley’s jaw twitched; _clearly_ , he wanted to do just that. He blamed himself for plenty of things; always had, likely always would. It was a habit hard to break.

“You needed me and I wasn’t there.”

“There’s nothing that you could have _done._ ”

“I gave up, y’know?”

There it was again – but this time, Aziraphale refused to be distracted. Frowning, he reached over and placed his hand atop Crowley’s, stilling his ring-fidgeting fingers as he quietly asked, “You what?”

“I _gave up,_ angel,” Crowley half-snarled, squeezing his eyes shut momentarily before explaining, “ _I thought you were dead!_ After that, it all just seemed… so bloody _pointless._ It’d seemed pointless plenty of times before over the millennia – asking what it’s all for and never getting a bloody answer – but this… this was _different._ So long as you were _somewhere_ on this blessed planet, then there _was_ a point. _You_ were the point. You were my ruddy fixed point from the Beginning, and then you were just… _gone_. So _I gave up._ What was the point in saving the world – in saving _the universe, even_ – if you were gone-?”

After a moment of silence, Crowley mumbled, “I would’ve drowned myself in holy water if I hadn’t used it all up on Ligur. So… drowning my sorrows and waiting for the world to implode seemed like the next best option.”

Aziraphale just stared at Crowley for a long moment, tears welling up in his eyes and his breathing growing tremulous. Then he tugged his hands free from Crowley’s grip to instead toss his arms around the demon’s neck and hug him – _tightly_. The force of the embrace caused Crowley to knock his head against the window behind him, but he didn’t complain; instead, he hesitantly – _gently_ – wrapped his arms around Aziraphale in return. After a few seconds of just holding onto the angel, Crowley tilted his head to nuzzle his nose into Aziraphale’s fluffy blond curls. Tears were still slipping down his cheeks and were now landing like small, salty raindrops in Aziraphale’s hair. The angel’s own tears were presently staining Crowley’s jacket.

“You called it ‘insurance’,” the angel whispered after a long while of just holding each other. Neither was quite sure how much time had passed, but it had to have been significant; for one thing, the baby in the back was no longer crying. “ _I_ called it a suicide pill and you _denied_ it-!”

“That was _before_ , angel,” Crowley muttered, his nose still pressed into Aziraphale’s hair. “Even when I thought of the world going up in flames… I always thought Hell would _lose –_ and, as the only agent constantly on Earth, I knew it would have somehow been pinned on me, _even then._ But never once did I think that you might… _be destroyed._ Even if Hell lost – if _I_ lost – I could've lived knowing you were safe. And… then you weren’t.”

Aziraphale didn’t fail to notice the way Crowley held him tighter and he responded in kind. Lifting a hand to tenderly run his fingers through Crowley’s hair, sooty and matted from the day’s events, he whispered through tears, “My dear, _dear_ boy…”

He wanted to say that there was always a point; that, even if he _had_ been taken out of the equation for good, there still would have been a reason for Crowley to keep fighting. There was the Earth, for one, and humanity. But the more he thought on it, the more he became convinced that, had the tables been turned and had he found a puddle of holy water at Crowley’s flat and no Crowley in sight, things may have looked a tad pointless to him, as well. Sighing shakily, not allowing himself to think too much more, Aziraphale turned his head and - with no hesitation (for once) – he pressed a chaste kiss to Crowley’s tear-stained cheek.

Crowley went dreadfully still for a moment, and then all of the tension seemed to drain from his body as he slumped in Aziraphale’s arms, his forehead dropping to the angel’s shoulder. Shuddering slightly, his tears still dampening Aziraphale’s neck, he whispered, “Don’t _ever_ scare me like that again…”

Holding Crowley tightly, Aziraphale whispered, “I shall try my best not to.”

Crowley made a meek noise and only looked up when the jostling of the bus alerted them that it had come to a stop. Glancing out the window, Crowley realized they had reached his building. Awkwardly, he forced himself to unravel from Aziraphale’s arms, but the angel still kept a firm grip on his hand as they exited the bus and stepped out onto the concrete, the cool night air rather accosting them. It was a bit warmer than the air conditioning on the bus had been, but it wasn’t _nearly_ warm enough, in Crowley’s humble opinion.

Sniffing quietly, doing his very best to _not_ look like he’d just been crying, the demon hesitantly asked, “Do you… want to come up? You never really answered before, but I know you haven’t got anyplace else to go, so I-”

“Yes,” Aziraphale cut in, giving Crowley’s hand a gentle squeeze. “Yes, I think I would like to come up. For once, dear boy, I think I may even try my hand at sleeping.”

It was small and easy to miss if you weren’t looking for it, but Crowley actually smiled. Tightly interlocking their fingers, Crowley led Aziraphale toward the complex’s lobby doors and playfully asked, “Would you object terribly if I joined you in bed?”

Aziraphale, laying his head against Crowley’s arm, whispered something teasing and incredibly affectionate about him being “a foul, wily fiend.”

As Crowley held his angel’s hand, firm and alive, and as he relished in walking on the solid, non-Apocalyptic ground, he whispered inwardly (to a God that he still wasn’t sure listened to him) a shaken but truly reverent, “ _Hallelujah._ ”

**Author's Note:**

> In case it isn't already obvious, this was also partially inspired by "Hallelujah" - particularly the Jeff Buckley version. After crying over these two to the tune of that song for roughly an hour, I decided to turn this fic into a three part mini-series. Keep your eyes open; there's more to come!


End file.
